I have wondered lately whether or not social media companies are going to be the cigarette companies of our times. The crackdown on cigarettes was so vicious that even now when I see somebody smoking I have a hard time not seeing it as a form of long-term suicide but then again, isn’t that what life is really? Haha I mean at its most depressing viewpoint all actions are technically killing us in the end. I can’t speak to how fair that was for cigarette companies, this is a thought piece. I wish I had solutions ready but I do think there are similarities between tobacco and social media. Both are consumption based industries. The more you consume, the better I profit. Both have an extended period of time where information was hidden or gaslit to reduce the real impact their products had on consumers. Why? Its simple, their scale of consumption graph seemed to have peak when graphed with “user health.” At a certain point user health would go down the more consumption increased. As any business owner knows this is a difficult place to be in.
The Similarities
Both big tobacco and big tech are huge industries that have changed the world. They’re also both highly profitable, highly addictive, and under pressure to change their ways. These two industries have a long history of deceiving the public about the health risks of their products, and both are incentivized not to believe their products cause long-term impacts to user health when used.
